{"id":242226,"date":"2026-01-13T11:03:15","date_gmt":"2026-01-13T11:03:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/242226\/"},"modified":"2026-01-13T11:03:15","modified_gmt":"2026-01-13T11:03:15","slug":"ruaidhri-oconnor-serious-doubts-still-linger-over-leinster-after-la-rochelle-display","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/242226\/","title":{"rendered":"R\u00faaidhr\u00ed O\u2019Connor: Serious doubts still linger over Leinster after La Rochelle display"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"indo-ebe0ecc6_root indo-ebe0ecc6_paragraph indo-91174671_secondary indo-1d70522a_marginbottom4 indo-1d70522a_marginleft0 indo-1d70522a_marginright0 indo-1d70522a_margintop4\" style=\"color:var(--color-primary-80)\" data-testid=\"title-summary\">\nDefence and discipline remain concerns for Leo Cullen as Blues close in on home advantage for Champions Cup knockouts\n<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"Ihaia West of La Rochelle scores his side's third try despite the tackle of Sam Prendergast at the Aviva Stadium on Saturday night. Photo: David Fitzgerald\/Sportsfile\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/13348c9f-74db-41e9-ab78-b41a2214c1f1.jpg\" loading=\"eager\" width=\"100%\" data-testid=\"article-image\"  \/><\/p>\n<p class=\"indo-ebe0ecc6_root indo-ebe0ecc6_caption1 indo-300db776_none indo-91174671_secondary indo-66f0fec7_regular indo-1d70522a_marginbottom0 indo-1d70522a_marginleft0 indo-1d70522a_marginright0 indo-1d70522a_margintop3 indo-b48c4984_left\" style=\"color:var(--color-grey-60)\">Ihaia West of La Rochelle scores his side&#8217;s third try despite the tackle of Sam Prendergast at the Aviva Stadium on Saturday night. Photo: David Fitzgerald\/Sportsfile<\/p>\n<p class=\"indo-ebe0ecc6_root indo-ebe0ecc6_paragraph indo-300db776_none indo-91174671_primary indo-1d70522a_marginbottom0 indo-1d70522a_margintop0 indo-b48c4984_inherit\" style=\"color:var(--color-primary-80)\">It is Leinster\u2019s lot that their season is one long existential crisis until their Champions Cup campaign ends in failure and the barrage of criticism rolls on in.<\/p>\n<p class=\"indo-ebe0ecc6_root indo-ebe0ecc6_paragraph indo-300db776_none indo-91174671_primary indo-1d70522a_marginbottom0 indo-1d70522a_margintop0 indo-b48c4984_inherit\" style=\"color:var(--color-primary-80)\">Saturday\u2019s epic win over La Rochelle threw up all sorts of memories of the great battles of old between these two teams, yet there was no escaping the fact that neither were at the level they were when they met in a similarly topsy-turvy 2023 final.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Defence and discipline remain concerns for Leo Cullen as Blues close in on home advantage for Champions Cup&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":242227,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[42553,61,60,11287,28577,16766,112],"class_list":{"0":"post-242226","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-sports","8":"tag-ronan-ogara","9":"tag-ie","10":"tag-ireland","11":"tag-leinster-rugby","12":"tag-leo-cullen","13":"tag-ruaidhri-oconnor","14":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/242226","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=242226"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/242226\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/242227"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=242226"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=242226"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=242226"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}